The TV Land sitcom goes behind the scenes on the animated episode airing in July

“Hot in Cleveland” is getting animated in an upcoming episode.

Directed by Freddy Cristy, the episode will feature the leading ladies, Elka (Betty White), Melanie (Valerie Bertinelli), Joy (Jane Leeves) and Victoria (Wendie Malick), as they travel around the world.

And TheWrap has an exclusive first look at the sitcom’s first efforts in animation. In the video, the cast and director express their excitement with the upcoming project and process.

“They can have us do anything, pretty much anything they want us to do and it’s possible,” Leeves says. “It’s a really sort of fun, magical story, and I think it sort of brings us back full circle to where we started from.”

The journey depicted in the episode is being described as “a psychedelic romp through pop culture hits,” and will include tributes to “Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory,” “The Walking Dead” and “Frankenstein.”

“The beauty of animation is that we can put the Eiffel Tower across the street from the Notre Dame Cathedral, and put Quasimodo in there, and have the girls appear in a magic puff of smoke, and have them go to a Willy Wonka-esque beauty land,” Cristy explains. “It’s a lot of fun, yeah, your imagination is the limit.”

Watch the video above.

The “Hot in Cleveland” animated episode airs Wednesday, July 30 at 10/9c on TV Land.

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